Google's birthday confused the "L" out of us

By David Coursey, PCWorld

Happy birthday, Google, but all this messing with your logo is just a little too precious, don't you think? And maybe the two ones in Goog11e should have been birthday candles?

I am all for, as one of my editors described it, "quirky and interesting." I liked the Morse code logo and the telescopes, but a series of flying saucers and crop circles? Sci-fi game references? I know what those referred to and couldn't care less. Waste of time and wonder.

And it took me -- and the friend who called to ask me about it -- a minute to realize the two "L"s in the logo today are really 1's, as in 11, as in a birthday. Again, happy birthday. (The actual birthday was Sunday and the Goog11e logo appears to have been removed).

There is nothing wrong with what Google is doing, mind you. However, when it isn't obvious enough that people have to start investigating and reading tweets to figure out what the fun logos -- or doodles, as Google calls them -- are supposed to be about, I think a line has probably been crossed somewhere.

If people look at the logo and wonder, "what's that about?" and have to go to a news story to find the answer, Google has wasted a bunch of people's time for no good reason. Which is odd since Google, and other search engines, are supposed to be about saving time.

I am all for having fun, but perhaps Google could create a clickable link or maybe add small print at the bottom of the page (where you'd have to scroll to see it) that explains what the fun doodles are about. (On the Goog11e logo you could mouse over it to find out what it represented).

Then they could do them all the time and it would be easy for everyone to play along at their homes or offices and then just click or scroll to the answer when its time to do more important -- if less fun -- things.

David Coursey tweets as @techinciter .

Reprinted with permission from

For more PC news, visit PCWorld.com.
Story copyright 2008 PC World Communications. All rights reserved.